London has been battered by 50mph winds that have felled trees and caused travel chaos. Powerful gusts swept across the capital as the Met Office issued a yellow "be aware" weather alert for most of the country.

Three suicide attackers killed at least nine civilians, most of them children, in a botched attack on the Indian consulate in an eastern Afghan city near the border with Pakistan, security officials said.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown has dismissed a claim in a letter from a senior Taliban commander to shot schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai that the Taliban were not against the education of women and girls.